**\#️⃣ Tags:** #Trauma #Safety > **🌱 Planted:** Tue 18 March 2025 --- Our [[Nervous System]] isn't designed to handle and process overwhelming experiences all in one go—otherwise these experiences wouldn't be [[Trauma|✦ Traumatic]] to us. Instead, it oscillates on a natural rhythm between periods of expansion and contraction—just like our breath. This rhythm represents our natural capacity to heal—what [[Peter Levine]] calls the "healing vortex"—which helps us to regulate our autonomic nervous system. This is an ability we share with animals, but like animals in captivity or those subject to factory farms, this natural rhythm becomes disrupted—especially for those of us with [[Developmental Trauma]] or Complex Trauma. Our [[Working With Our Window of Tolerance|Window of Presence]] is narrow, and our ability to tolerate overwhelming or uncomfortable situations is compromised. When this happens we might get stuck in intense activation (feeling overcome by emotions or sensations) or in protective shutdown (feeling numb or disconnected). When we're in these states we tend to forget we have a natural healing capacity built right into our biology, but we can safely work with our trauma with these three principles from Somatic Experiencing: # Resourcing Before we go anywhere or do anything, we need to feel safe where we are, and safe in our bodies. Resourcing is connecting in with yourself and finding your home base. To find a resource, we deliberately notice and connect to anything that helps us feel supported, safe, grounded, or at ease. A resource can literally be anything, but it might look like noticing the coming and going of your breath, your feet firmly planted on the ground, your butt supported by the chair, or even a comforting item, place, person or memory. When we find a resource, we're more in tune with our bodily [[The way we experience ourselves is through the Felt Sense|Felt Sense]]. We feel grounded in [[Presence]] and better positioned to be able to face uncomfortable situations without getting too overwhelmed and shifting out of our [[Working With Our Window of Tolerance|Window of Presence]]. [[Setting a Presence Anchor]] is a great way to find a resource. # Pendulation Imagine you were going to jump into a cold pool. Instead of jumping straight in, which might be too overwhelming, you instead first dip your toes in. Then you dip your leg in, one by one. Finally, you might put half of your body in before you come out again. As you do this, your body slowly gets used to the cold and gains confidence in your ability to be with both sensations of being really cold and comfortable. That's what pendulation is. When we're in a resourced state, we can begin to pendulate, which is to consciously go into and come out of uncomfortable feelings, emotions or sensations while returning to our resource whenever things start to feel overwhelming. When we do this, we slowly teach our nervous systems that it can handle the discomfort without becoming too overwhelmed. # Titration [[Trauma]] happens when experiences come at us too fast and too soon, so much so that they are overwhelming to us. We don't need to push ourselves past the edges of our window of Presence. If fully going into the cold water is too much for your system that day, then it's too much. We instead work with exactly what we can handle in that moment. So that might be just putting one leg in the cold water one one day, and maybe the next day we could try two legs in the cold water and see how that goes. This is what titration is. When we titrate our uncomfortable experiences we approach our wounds in small and manageable portions before we pendulate out and return to safety and resourcing. This way, we're working with the wisdom of our nervous system and respecting what it can handle without pushing through the edge of our tolerance. This approach doesn't force healing, it invites it. The best part is that we can use these principles outside of the therapeutic container and in our everyday lives. When we honour these principles of working with our wounds, we respect not only ourselves, but the pace and rhythm that our unique nervous system is capable of. --- **➡️ Next:** [[]]